The Kremlin had an ambitious, some would say reckless, plan to temporarily defeat the Ukrainian armed forces and overthrow the government in Kiev. The plan, which included simultaneous attacks with helicopters and armored vehicles in Kyiv, ultimately failed.
Ukrainian border guards, territorial troops and fighter pilots fought fiercely in the early hours of the Russian attack since the early morning hours of February 24. They controlled to stop the Russians and buy time for Ukrainian reinforcements to arrive.
But many of them, Lieutenant Colonel Vyacheslav Yerko, a MiG-29 pilot for the Ukrainian Air Force, were killed in the fighting.
Yerko’s story in particular is a window into the heady hours of the early morning hours of February 24, when Russia’s bid for a short war almost succeeded, and then failed spectacularly.
Russian rockets and missiles struck first. Long-range munitions rain down on Ukrainian bases and airfields. Among the pre-dawn targets, Vasylkiv Air Base, 20 miles southwest of central Kyiv.
Vasylkiv is home to the Tactical Aviation Brigade, one of 4 brigades operating the approximately 50 Ukrainian Mikoyan MiG-29 twin-engine supersonic fighters.
The rockets and missiles the Russians introduced into Vasylkiv that first night damaged the base or its resident fighters. Alerted through U. S. intelligence, the Ukrainian Air Force had deployed its aircraft, making it difficult to select Russian targets.
When the sun rose, a 700-strong Russian air strike force, aboard 24,000 Mi-8 helicopters escorted via 10,000 Mi-24 and Kamov Ka-52 warships, flew lowly toward Hostomal airport on the northwestern tip of Kyiv. Just 25 miles north of Vasylkiv. Russian Air Force fighters flew under cover.
Helicopter infantrymen intended to hold Hostomel and allow thousands of additional Russian infantrymen to fly to Kyiv at the same time as a Russian armored force advanced toward the city from the northwest and northeast.
The armored thrusts would collapse weeks later when Ukrainian infantry loaded with Javelin anti-tank missiles ambushed Russian convoys.
By then, the Kremlin’s gamble in Kyiv had already failed. It failed when the Ukrainian air force, army and border guards prevented the capture of Hostomel.
The wreckage of a Russian battleship Mi-24, shot down the initial attack on Kyiv.
The MiG-29 pilots of the Tactical Aviation Brigade were instrumental in this first decisive victory for Ukraine. Five MiG-29s took off, veered north and rammed the formation of rotating Russian helicopters toward the airport.
Yerko single-handedly shot down two Mi-24s, according to Ukraine’s Defense Ministry. In total, Ukrainian pilots and air defense troops shot down at least 4 of the 34 helicopters in the attack on Hostomel and others.
Ukrainian MiGs disrupted Russian air support, depriving troop charges at Hostomel of the firepower they needed to defeat Ukrainian border guards and territorial troops who controlled much of the airport. The Ukrainian Air Force’s Sukhoi Su-24 bombers flew low and dropped unguided bomb sticks on the hapless Russian attackers.
Ukrainian defenders held out around Hostomel until the arrival of special operations forces and heavier formations of the active army. The Russians reinforced their positions at the airport with their own heavier forces that advanced south from Belarus, but by February 27, the Ukrainians had accumulated artillery around the airport and were systematically demolishing Russian positions.
The Russians were never able to send forces to Hostomel after that first day. The war over the airport lasted several weeks, but the most likely final results became apparent after a few hours.
It is not known precisely when the surviving Russians withdrew from Hostomel. But that was before March 29, when the Kremlin ordered its forces to beat around Kyiv to retreat to Belarus and southern Russia.
Hundreds of Russians and Ukrainians died fighting over Hostomal airport. Yerko was one of the victims. After shooting down two helicopters on the morning of February 24, he aimed his MiG-29 at the Russian fixed-wing aircraft operating over Kyiv.
Over the next 24 hours, it shot down a Suhkoi Su-25 attack aircraft and a Sukhoi Su-35 fighter, according to Ukraine’s Defense Ministry. There is imaginable visual evidence of the previous murder. This new murder, if it took place, left no apparent trace.
The air war over Kyiv in the first 24 hours charged both sides dearly. The Russians shot down at least 3 MiG-29s, Yerko’s. But “cowardly” Russian troops on the ground knocked it down as it floated, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said.
Three months later, after the Ukrainian army finished expelling the Russian army from northern Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky bestowed on Yerko the name “Hero of Ukraine, Order of the Golden Star. “
Yerko posthumously presents the award to some of Ukraine’s bravest and most outstanding pilots, and adds Major Vadym Voroshylov, who in October survived the destruction of his own MiG-29Array. . . And he took a bloody selfie while parachuting to safety.